


In the Gray Morn

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F, M/M, Polyamory, Recovery, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:50:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Amidst seasonal changes, Hermione cannot seem to keep pace.





	

**Author's Note:**

> written for a friend. i havent looked over this once, i wrote it over the course of a few days just for fun.
> 
> hermione: trans girl, she/her  
> ginny: bigender, she/her and he/him  
> luna: nonbinary, they/them and she/her  
> harry and ron: trans men, he/him

Autumn appeared overnight, so spontaneously that neither Hermione, Ginny, nor Luna had a chance to prepare themselves. They simply woke up one morning with cold toes, cold floors, and a cold gray sky framed by the rotting windowsill. Their bedroom did not shine with a routine square of summery light; instead, a colorless chill pierced through the curtains and spilled across every surface.

Hermione blinked at the ceiling, faintly aware of her numb toes sticking out from the duvet. Beside her, Ginny wormed closer, tucking her nose into the junction between Hermione’s neck and shoulder. On the far side of the bed, the imprint of Luna’s body was still pressed in the warped sheets.

“My arm’s asleep,” Hermione said.

“It’s too cold,” Ginny grunted.

“I’m getting up now.”

Hermione stood, ignoring how the floor shocked the soles of her feet, and went to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth and hair because it was pragmatic, then rifled around the closet for a lumpy jumper courtesy of Molly. The knit felt scratchy against her skin compared to the sheer tank tops and sundresses she was accustomed to.

She stood in the doorway of the bedroom and heard Luna bustling in the tiny kitchen down the hall. “Get up,” she said to Ginny, and turned away.

Luna twittered around in their usual nightgown, setting coffee to brew (for themself and Ginny), preparing the kettle (for Hermione), and cracking eggs from the coop to whisk.

“What’s wrong?” they asked Hermione, a strand of hair caught on the corner of their lips. Their hair was always catching on something—eyelashes, clothing, jewelry—as if extending from their face like a delicate spiderweb.

“Nothing,” Hermione said, sitting at the table below a bay window which overlooked the chicken coop, walkway, and valley in which their cottage resided.

“Did you sleep alright?” Luna asked, laying strips of bacon in a cast iron pan.

“Yes,” Hermione lied. “This morning feels different. The house is drafty.”

“Well, one doesn’t have to wake up as early to see the sunrise, now,” Luna informed. “You know, it only feels different because you forgot how it felt to be cold.”

The cold never used to bother Hermione. She used to love watching snowflakes fall on the other side of Hogwarts’ windows, or join snowball fights after a round of warm golden butterbeers. Sometimes as she, Harry, and Ron walked across the school grounds, she reached for Ron’s hand and he simply twined their gloved fingers together without a word.

Luna held her hand now, before setting a mug of tea on the table before her. “Don’t worry. You’ll remember.”

Hermione stared at the tea. “Probably.” Though she had her doubts.

Ginny walked into the kitchen wearing boots, jeans, and a flannel haphazardly buttoned over a jacket. “Hi, Luna,” she greeted, reaching around them to nab a piece of bacon, even if it burnt her fingertips and mouth.

“Hi, Gene,” Luna replied. The nickname was created when Ginny made Quidditch captain, then solidified after she entrusted Luna and Neville with her gender questioning. Ginny flitted around Luna, joking, flirting, and stealing food. Hermione watched, quietly sipping tea. There were so many things she felt apart from; she had no idea when to call Ginny her boyfriend or girlfriend, he or she, Gene or Ginny. Her own identity was rigid—Luna was better equipped to deal with fluidity.

“Hey—” Ginny sat beside Hermione with two plates of food, and placed one next to Hermione’s tea. Her eyes lingered concernedly, knowing it’d be another morose morning. Hermione sometimes wished she could simply mope as much as she wanted in private, without Ginny’s dutiful attempts to cheer her.

“Thanks,” she said, and began picking at her eggs.

A light breeze racketed the glass of the window. Ginny shifted closer while wolfing down her breakfast. Luna sat on Hermione’s other side, hair tucked behind their ears.

After eating, Hermione went to the fenced chicken coop to toss feed on the ground. The birds marched down from the coop and pecked at the seeds excitedly. A handful of chickens stayed beside the two hens while one rooster trod the perimeter, and the other perched atop the coop.

Hermione sat in the tall grass to watch them all, arms wrapped around her shins, dew dampening her pants. The sky was swathed with flat clouds, draped over the white sun like lavender linen. Past the cottage, across the valley, sprawled wildflowers darkened to autumnal hues. In a few short months the ground would be frozen, packed hard with cold; but for now, everything was perfectly suspended in the gray morn.

A tiny chick slipped through a gap in the fence and paused at Hermione’s shoes. She smiled and bent to cup the chick in her hands. It chirped up at her and ruffled its wings. She stood and deposited it back with its brethren.

Ginny was on leave after being drafted to the Harpies until training began in the early spring, and Luna had just returned from another investigative journalist outing last week, and would be holed up at home writing her reports and articles. Hermione walked back inside and stood before them both in the living room.

“The fence needs repaired,” she said.

Luna, now dressed in a wool skirt and cardigan, looked up from her enchanted typewriter. Ginny tossed aside a Quidditch magazine.

“Why not charm it?” Ginny asked.

Hermione scowled. “Actually fixing it would be better.”

“Muggleborns,” Ginny muttered.

“I think it sounds fun,” Luna said.

“We don’t have any tools around here,” Ginny said.

“That’s because you just use magic for everything. Harry and Ron helped us build the coop,” Hermione reminded. “Let’s Floo them.”

She knelt before the fireplace, threw a pinch of powder, and stuck her head into the green flames before shouting the address of Harry and Ron’s London flat. Their living room—a tiny space overcrowded with a pullout couch, clutter, and used dishes—materialized. Past the couch Hermione could see the light of their kitchenette.

“Harry? Ron?”

There was a loud clang and muttered curses. Ron rounded the sofa in socks, boxers, and a t-shirt cradling his hand. Hermione had seen him in less before, and by now she was confident in her lesbianism.

“What’d you do?” she asked.

“Spilled bloody coffee. Warn a guy, will you?” Ron sat down. “Are you gong to come in, or just stay there?”

“The chicken coop’s fence needs fixed.”

“Okay.” Ron glanced over his shoulder. “I need to talk to you, just for a few.”

Hermione frowned. “One moment.”

She pulled back into her own living room. “Ron wants me to come over for a bit to talk.”

Ginny snorted. “Has he fucked Harry yet?”

Hermione flushed. For months now the dynamic between her two best friends had been a source of fascination for Ginny. “I don’t know!”

“I think Harry would top,” Luna commented. “And Ron would cry.”

“They’d both cry, and they’re both a bit of bottoms,” Ginny said. “They’d flip a coin to top.”

“I’m going now,” Hermione announced.

“Hold on!” Ginny lifted her wand. “Accio condom!”

Luna yelped as several condoms whizzed out of crevices in the living room—under a couch cushion, out of a junk drawer, behind stacks of books—and barreled Ginny in the face. She spluttered and tossed a few to Hermione, who let them fall to the floor.

“Don’t even,” she warned, and Flooed again, this time stepping through the flames.

Ron had successfully obtained coffee and returned to the couch. Hermione shook her hair and sat beside him.

“So?” she asked.

“Harry’s been weird,” Ron said, setting his mug down on the coffee table.

Hermione tensed. She and Ron intimately remembered the months following the war, wherein Harry walked like a skeletal wraith, barely eating or communicating whilst hiding in the Burrow. Eventually Ron suggested moving to the Muggle world for a change, and, to everyone’s surprise, especially his own, Harry quickly improved. He wasn’t constantly under the scrutiny of the wizarding public, and remembered the parts of himself not associated with magic or being the Boy Who Lived, as he put it. Hermione had felt left out, unable to witness her friend regain his health, but she was busy finishing school and juggling losing her feelings for Ron and gaining feelings for Luna and Ginny. In the end, it had been what was best for them all.

“Not like that,” Ron quickly assured. “Just—he’ll be normal when we’re out somewhere, but when we’re home alone he’s...quiet and distant.”

Hermione struggled not to sigh. She had a chicken coop to fix, and no time for her friends’ relationship issues. “I don’t know, Ronald.” The use of his whole name still sparked a sense of maternal purpose within her. “Have you done anything to him?”

“Don’t say it like that,” he muttered. “I’m not totally oblivious.”

“Why are you asking me for help, then?”

Ron opened his mouth to speak when Harry stumbled into the room. “Hermione?” he asked confusedly.

“Morning.” She checked her watch. “It’s eleven, you know.”

“Huh.” Harry disappeared into the kitchenette, then emerged with coffee and a styrofoam box.

“Those are my leftover wings,” Ron said.

“I know.” Harry sat down and began eating them.

“You’re disgusting,” Hermione chastised. She frowned. “Is that Ron’s shirt?”

Harry glanced down. “I guess.”

Ron’s ears reddened. “Must’ve gotten mixed in the laundry.”

“Right.” Hermione stood. “So, are you coming over?”

“Sure,” Ron nodded. “We’ll bring lunch.”

“Second breakfast,” Harry amended around a mouthful of cold wings.

Later in the afternoon everyone congregated outside. Ron donned a jean jacket and Harry wore an oversized flannel. Hermione wondered if they noticed whose clothes were whose anymore.

Ginny and Luna served hot sandwiches while Ron and Harry sorted through their Muggle toolbox they kept to fix their flat. Ron always complained about the fact that living among Muggles had made Harry regress in his habits. It reminded Hermione of her father mending the pipes under the sink, but she quickly squashed the nostalgia.

“Do you have any more two by fours?” Ron asked, sitting beside the gap in the fence where the chick had wandered out that morning.

“We have firewood,” Ginny said.

“I’ll transfigure them,” Hermione suggested.

At the side of the house, Ginny held out her arms to hold the boards Hermione transfigured, and launched into observations about her brother. “That’s Harry’s jacket. Ron doesn’t think about the clothes he buys. The jacket is too nice. And Harry’s wearing Ron’s shirt.”

“Uh-huh.”

“What did Ron want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Harry walked in before he could really say anything.”

“We need to lock them in a closet.”

“You sound like George.”

Ginny quieted at that. “You must know something’s going on, though.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it!” Hermione snapped. “Just leave things be, Ginny.”

The log Hermione had been transfiguring burst into pieces.

Harry jogged over. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Hermione said.

Ginny wordlessly walked off.

“Hermione, you need to talk to her.”

“Oh, as if you’re in any place to give me relationship advice.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“Ask Ron.”

Luna’s voice carried across the yard. “You’re upsetting the animals!”

They both turned to see them sitting with the chicks in their lap, a rooster on their shoulder, and the other three birds squawking at their feet.

Hermione pocketed her wand and sighed. She put a hand on Harry’s elbow. “Look. Everyone knows something’s been between you and him for awhile. He says you’ve been distant lately.”

Harry blushed and looked away. “So he knows?”

“He knows you’re keeping things from him. And I reckon he’s keeping things from you, too.”

Harry shrugged. “I suppose. What about you?”

Hermione crossed her arms. “What about me?”

“Ron said Ginny told him she thinks you’re depressed.”

“What! When?”

“Last Sunday at the Burrow.”

Hermione frowned. “Well, I’m not.”

Harry’s voice lowered. “I of all people would understand; you can be honest with me.”

“I’m fixing the fence, aren’t I?” Hermione asked.

“Yes, and it seems you’re doing a bang up job.”

Hermione looked down at the shards of wood littered around their feet, intermingled with fallen red leaves and flattened flower petals transferred by the wind.

“You told me admitting I need help is the first step,” Harry said. “It really pissed me off.”

Now, Hermione knew why.

They walked back to the coop. Ron paused in taking out old, broken boards, his mussed red locks stark against the dim sky. “Everything alright?”

“Yes,” Hermione said.

“Are you sure?”

She glanced at Harry, who knelt beside Ron. “Of course, mate,” he said.

He and Ron shared some kind of look, then got back to work. Hermione joined, and the three easily picked up their old familiar synchronicity. Luna kept the birds at bay while they toiled, and Ginny brought out apple cider—handing Hermione her cup with a kiss to the cheek. The sun waned behind the clouds, a veiled disk of darkening light. By the early evening a burnished sunset cast itself over the valley as the clouds finally lifted, and the fence was mended.

Ginny, Ron, and Harry decided to make use of the last rays of light and pulled out old broomsticks to fly over the fields of tall grass and wildflowers. Hermione watched at atop a hill. Luna approached and draped a quilt over her shoulders.

“Did you remember?” they inquired.

Hermione tipped her head back. The fleeting warmth touched her skin, followed by a cool breeze. “I think so,” she said, and opened her eyes. “It’s not as bad as I thought it’d be.”


End file.
